Jesus Christ came into the world to be light where there's darkness, to be

righteousness where there's darkness, to be righteousness where there is wrong, to be healing where there's sickness and brokenness,

freedom where there is bondage and joy, where there's dreariness and sadness and discouragement.

Why did Jesus come into the world?

That's the all important question that John Piper answers from Malachai 4, 1 to 3

in this episode of Light and Truth. This sermon was originally... this I want to suggest three explanations for why Jesus is changing the world to such an incomparable extent.

And they come from the Bible. I want to take three New Testament witnesses, Luke, Matthew, and John, men who either knew Jesus personally

or knew those who knew him very well.

And read to you from their testimony, their answer to the question

why Jesus is having the effect he's having.

The first witness is Luke.

Luke chapter one. Now Luke, as many of you know, wrote a two-volume work about early Christianity,

the life of Jesus in his gospel, and the life of the early church in the acts of the Apostles.

He didn't know Jesus personally before he died and rose again, but he knew Paul well, and when Paul was in Cesaria in jail for two years,

it implies very clearly in the Book of Acts, that Luke was with him or in the vicinity waiting so that he

could travel with him again.

What do you suppose Luke was doing in Palestine, in Judea, for two years. It's almost certain by common sense and by clues in his

gospel he was talking with people who knew Jesus. Mary in particular. Have you ever

asked why in Luke's Gospel three times, I believe,

it says something to the effect, and Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart.

The reason I believe is because he talked to her. She was

the source of his first two chapters. She had kept them pure, clear, and now a gospel writer had them.

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